'New Girl' star Max Greenfield: I can never wear a cardigan again

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On the one hand, he gets approached by fans of the show who love his character’s misguided attempts to be cool. But on the other, because of that, he can never wear a cardigan again. Greenfield tells Zap2it, “I was at a party one night, and I walked up and some guy was like ‘Nice cardi, Schmidt!’ I was like, ‘Well, I guess I’ve got to throw all these away.’ I can’t wear a cardigan again without someone being like [snidely] ‘Alright!'”

Aside from the new sartorial restrictions, this is one occasion where an actor’s character doesn’t affect his daily life. Greenfield says no Schmidt-isms have crept into his vocabulary since he’s played Zooey Deschanel’s roommate. “No, my wife would divorce me. I would divorce myself,” he jokes. “It would be terribly embarrassing.”

Speaking of Schmidt, Greenfield promises his character will have plenty more misadventures when the show returns from its winter hiatus on Tuesday, Jan. 17. “He’s getting some mixed signals from his boss,” he says. “Gillian Vigman, who was in
the pilot whom I love, she’s throwing him some mixed signals and he
doesn’t know what to do. He may or may not get up the courage to make a
move.”

He continues: “He has a few [more romantic situations] and then he goes after what he’s always been after, which is Cece. I think it may or may not work out, we don’t know!”

A coy smile suggests that perhaps things will work out in Schmidt’s favor, but since this is Schmidt we’re talking about, things won’t go smoothly for long. He’ll also have an incident that involves “getting naked and taking pictures of my genitals” in some sort of sexting-gone-wrong situation. “Yeah, that might happen,” he says.

Other topics of our discussion included his epic Rihanna lip sync video (“It got ripped down!”), making more videos akin to his self-shot Scmidt dating profile (“I don’t know what it’s going to be quite yet, but it’s coming.”) and Greg Garcia publicly discussing his son’s love of Greenfield’s small nipples during FOX’s comedy Television Critics Association press tour panel earlier that day.

“Listen, if this was random Joe on the street talking about my nipples, I don’t know what I’d think. But because it’s Greg Garcia I feel flattered,” he says. “If my nipples are bringing Greg Garcia and his child joy, then I feel like job well done by me. And I’m winning. I just think this whole thing is hilarious.”

Unfortunately, our encouragement to start a beef with the “Raising Hope” showrunner was brushed off.

“No, I want to go be a guest star on his show where I take my shirt off and something happens to my nipples,” he jokes. “I don’t know. I loved [‘My Name Is Earl’]. I think ‘Raising Hope’s’ great. Look, it’s all fun. And, you know, they’re not the largest nipples. He’s not making something up here. These kids these days, they don’t know how to be gentle!”